Business Ethics BUSI 1314 Lecture 6 - sustainability

you to:

Discuss sustainability issues by referring to key events in

public debate,
critically make sense of specific sustainability projects
appreciate tensions and trade-offs between different dimensions of sustainability
give a reasonable discussion on the division of responsibilities with regard to sustainability

Greenwich - 2010-2011

assumptions
Individual responsibility
Market driven responsibility
Political responsibility
Sense-making impact
Further reading: - Marsden 2000 - Spence

and Perrini 2009

Wim Vandekerckhove - Business Ethics BUSI 1314 - University of Greenwich - 2010-2011

- University of Greenwich -

2010-2011

1987 – Brundtland Report Our Common Future

Concerned with:
a global equity, redistributing resources towards poorer nations whilst encouraging their economic growth.

suggested that equity, growth and environmental maintenance are simultaneously possible

recognised that achieving this equity and sustainable growth would require technological and social change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5NiTN0chj0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Sustainable development =
development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

1314 - University of Greenwich -

2010-2011

Agenda 21, established at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, or "Earth Summit", in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is the blueprint for sustainability in the 21st century.

Involves:
Governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), industry and the general public

Issues:
air pollution, deforestation, biodiversity loss, health, overpopulation, poverty, energy consumption, waste production and transport issues

Ethics BUSI 1314 - University of Greenwich -

2010-2011

There is a ‘capital base’ from which current and future well-being are derived

Tripple Bottom Line
Trade-offs?
Incommensurable?

Indicators?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpucONE7WWk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

- Business Ethics BUSI 1314 - University of Greenwich -

2010-2011

rejection of “marginalist” perspective
concern about energy and materials use
discounting future costs is unacceptable

Irreversibility (can not restore natural capital)

Uncertainty (systems poorly understood)

Scale (threshold effects, large-scale damages)

BUSI 1314 - University of Greenwich -

2010-2011

What can you do?

economic

social

environmental

How far do you go?

What are the trade-offs?

- University of Greenwich -

2010-2011

Recycling industry

Green energy (nuclear?)

Micro-loans

Carbon emissions trade

(Kyoto and ETS)
political

Business opportunities in SD

Fair trade

University of Greenwich - 2010-2011
Climate
Kyoto
Copenhagen
Nagoya,

Cahun, …

Social
War
Migration
Dialogue
Culture & Religion
Gender

Economic
WTO
Labour standards
Education
Taxes (Tobin)
Financial system

2010)
Wim Vandekerckhove - Business Ethics BUSI 1314 - University of

Greenwich - 2010-2011

Informed by ecology, but human-focused.
Emphasizes ecological limits and discontinuity
Emphasizes conservation of critical components of natural capital stock (e.g. critical set-asides) and social capital
Focuses on limits to deterioration of ecological assets and management of social transformation, at all levels: local-national-global
Asks “what is the carrying capacity of a system?”
Asks “what are appropriate measures of resilience?”
Questions traditional measures of wealth.

Part of the solution to sustainability’, Business and Society Review

105(1), 9-25
Shively, G. (2010), ‘Sustainability’ (Agricultural Economy Lecture 35) West Lafayette IN, Purdue University. Available from: http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/staff/shively/COURSES/AGEC406/reviews/lectures/index.htm (accessed 7 September 2010)
Spence, L.J. and Perrini, F. (2009), ‘Practice and politics: Ethics and social responsibility in SMEs in the European union’, African Journal of Business Ethics 4, 20-31 [serial online]. Available from: http://www.ajobe.org/text.asp?2009/4/2/20/63198 (accessed 28 September 2010)

Wim Vandekerckhove - Business Ethics BUSI 1314 - University of Greenwich - 2010-2011

an organisation (choose a case from list underneath).
Analysis means

you point out the controversy,
explain why the issue is controversial (why is it not straightforward right or wrong?),
identify arguments made,
evaluate the arguments made (what kind of argument is it, is it a good argument?).
This means that you will be approaching the issue from more than one position (stakeholder) and you will make use of more than one ethical perspective (in identifying and evaluating the arguments made).
End your essay with your personal position on the issue. Of course, you need to give arguments here as well.
Referencing is necessary – but academic references are optional.
Maximum 2500 words – Deadline 17 December 2010 3pm

Wim Vandekerckhove - Business Ethics BUSI 1314 - University of Greenwich - 2010-2011

MarketWatch.com: "The Burden of Knowledge: The ethics of John Paulson

and Goldman Sachs"
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-sachs-and-john-paulson-the-ethics-2010-06-04?reflink=MW_news_stmp (accessed 28 September 2010)

Grameen Bank
Read this comment in The Guardian by Salil Tripathi on micro-credits.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/oct/17/businesscomment.internationalaidanddevelopment (accessed 18 October 2010)

Arcelor Mittal
See a briefing paper from a campaigning organisation on how Arcelor Mittal makes a fortune by selling emissions permits:
http://sandbag.org.uk/files/sandbag.org.uk/The_Case_of_ArcelorMittal.pdf (accessed 28 September 2010)

HTC, Vodafone, Google supply chain controversy
This controversy over union busting in Taiwan is mentioned on many websites, but here is a link to one of them:
http://goodelectronics.org/news-en/taiwanese-electronics-workers-figth-for-their-rights(accessed 18 October 2010)

Wim Vandekerckhove - Business Ethics BUSI 1314 - University of Greenwich - 2010-2011